Africa Great Lakes Democracy Watch

Welcome toAfrica Great Lakes Democracy Watch Blog.Our objective is to promote the institutions of democracy,social justice,Human Rights,Peace, Freedom ofExpression, and Respect to humanity in Rwanda,Uganda,DR Congo, Burundi,Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya,Ethiopia, and Somalia. We strongly believe that Africa will develop if only our presidents stop being rulers of men and become leaders of citizens. We support Breaking the Silence Campaign for DR Congo since we believe the democracy in Rwanda means peace inDRC. Follow this link to learn more about the origin of the war in both Rwanda and DR Congo:http://www.rwandadocumentsproject.net/gsdl/cgi-bin/library

Saturday, March 31, 2012

RWANDA:Behind The Presidential Curtains: A hungry president the truth behind Congo war.

After
the overthrow of Mobutu of Zaire and naming it Democratic Republic of
Congo, Paul Kagame was convinced that his Government will have the
biggest access of Congo’s wealth and the right to do whatever he wished
without any hindrance.
Kagame made Desire Kabila the new president of the DRC, convincing
himself that he would use him to control and grab all he laid his hands
on in the Congo. At that time Kagame has deployed the DRC with most of
his senior trusted officers to control not only the wealthy country but
also President Kabila. Kagame’s own right hand man Gen James Kabarebe
headed the Congolese army.
President Desire Kabila got a bit sceptical of Kagame’s long time goals and sought advice from his senior officers (Congolese).This
came following an incident where Kagame had confiscated arms,
ammunitions and vehicles Kabila’s government had purchased through the
Rwanda army. These logistics included artillery pieces such Ballistic
Missiles (BM), Heavy and Light Anti-Aircraft pieces, General Purpose
Machine Guns (GPMG),
48 Nissan Patrol 4×4 Trucks and 80 Land Rovers Jeeps. Kagame decided to
only dispatch a half of these logistics to Congo keeping the rest for
himself.
This caused a lot of anger, distrust and chaos to Kabila and his
government. In return Kabila ordered the Rwandan forces under their most
senior Commander General James Kabarebe to leave the country.
He was made to leave the country without taking even the car he was
travelling in to the airport, something that annoyed the whole army.
On their arrival at Kanombe International Airport, we drove his
excellence Paul Kagame to meet with them. This force was immediately
ordered to go to Camp GP (Presidential Guard Barracks) and wait for more
orders as they remain on standby. He seemed physically angered and
disappointed at that time.
After twenty four hours we went to Camp GP with Paul Kagame to brief the
forces why they should immediately go back to the Congo to fight
Kabila, the man they had just installed in power.
Surprisingly everyone supported the idea because at that time all
soldiers seemed to believe that they would keep their loot on return
from the DRC. These included gems and American Dollars the currency
Congo used.
Desire Kabila on the other hand had solicited for troops from Zimbabwe
and Angola to take over deployments after the departure of the Rwandese
forces.
When Kagame’s forces attacked Congo this second time, they could not believe how massively Kabila had deployed.
Our forces sustained big losses and casualties this time around. The
first Congo war was a bit easier because Kagame negotiated with
President Chiluba of Zambia to offer our troops the quickest route to
Kinshasa.
When Kagame attempted to ask for the second attack route to oust Kabila
on this second time, President Chiluba declined, reminding Kagame that:
‘’I thought Mobutu was a bad man and a dictator what about Kabila you
came with to visit me, why fight him now’’.
This Second Congo War (also known as the Great War of Africa) began in
August 1998 in the DRC, and officially ended in July 2003 when the
transitional government took power.
The deadliest war in modern African history, it directly involved eight
African nations, as well as about 25 armed groups. Surprisingly
President Paul Kagame created more than 8 armed groups to destabilise
the region for his own interests. By 2008, the war had claimed lives of
over 5.4 million people, mostly from diseases and starvation, making
the Second Congo War the deadliest conflict worldwide since the world
war. Millions more were displaced from their homes or sought refuge in
neighbouring countries. This was all caused by Kagame’s idea of wanting
to make himself the richest man on the globe.
Despite a formal end to the war in July 2003 and an agreement by the
former belligerents to create a government of national unity, 1,000
people died daily in 2004 from easily preventable cases of malnutrition
and disease. The war and the conflicts afterwards were driven by, among
other things, the trade in minerals.
The first Congo war began in 1996 as Rwanda grew increasingly concerned
about members of Interahamwe militias and former Rwanda Government
Forces who were carrying out cross-border raids from Zaire (currently
known as the Democratic Republic of Congo) and thought to be planning an
invasion.
The militias, mostly Hutu, were entrenched in refugee camps in eastern
Zaire, where many had fled to escape the Tutsi-dominated RPF in the
aftermath of the Rwanda Genocide.
Kagame’s government of Rwanda protested this violation of their
territorial integrity and began to give arms to the ethnically Tutsi
Banyamulenge of eastern Zaire. It was evident that the insurgents were
so weak to attack a country like Rwanda, they had fled to the forests of
Congo to try and find a living for their families.
Most of them however had joined Kagame’s forces but he kept on lying to
the world that he was fighting the Hutu militia when they had actually
joined his own army after what he calls voluntary repatriation.
When Kabila finally gained control over the capital in May 1997, he
faced substantial obstacles to governing the country, which he renamed
‘the Democratic Republic of Congo’ (DRC). Beyond political jostling
among various groups to gain power and an enormous external debt, his
foreign backers proved unwilling to leave when asked. The conspicuous
Rwandan presence in the capital also ranked many Congolese, who were
beginning to see Kabila as a pawn of foreign powers.

Tensions reached new heights on 14 July 1998, when Kabila dismissed his
Rwandan chief of staff James Kabarebe and replaced him with a native
Congolese, Celestin Kifwa. Although the move chilled what was already a
troubled relationship with Rwanda, he softened the blow by making
Kabarebe the military advisor to his successor.

Two weeks later, Kabila abandoned such diplomatic steps. He thanked
Rwanda for its help and ordered all Rwandan and Ugandan military forces
to leave the country. Within 24 hours Rwandan military advisors living
in Kinshasa were unceremoniously flown out. The people most alarmed by
this order were the Banyamulenge of eastern Congo. Their tensions with
neighbouring ethnic groups had been a contributing factor in the genesis
of the first Congo war and they were also used by Rwanda to affect
events across the border in the DRC.
This was all triggered by Kagame’s long arm of theft of Minerals,
Ammunitions, Money and Vehicles. Not only civilians and younger soldiers
died but also the commanders such as General Masasu, Colonel Wilson
Rutaisire, Major Ikondere and in the end Desire Kabila himself

Laurent Nkunda in Prison
and others. According to his excellence Paul Kagame our aim was to
fight the hutu militias who were threatening to come back and kill the
innocent civilians, however we crossed the border and headed to
Kinshasha, but the so called militias were hiding in the forests of
Katanga region and equatorial. After the international community
pressure the Rwandese soldiers withdrew and we haven’t seen any militias
attack Rwanda, so what else do we need to question the cause of the war
that swiped a millions of lives?
Noble Marara
Edited by Rwema Francis